Comet Comments—
Coloma High School Newsletter
January 2015
Principal, Mr. David Ehlers
MISSION STATEMENT:
We are dedicated to fostering pride in the school, the community and nourishing a
positive self-image for every student. Our belief is that all students can and will
learn best when excellence is expected; educational achievement will be obtained
only when students are encouraged and challenged to attain this excellence.
VISION:
TOGETHER…..
STRIVING AND
FROM THE DESK
OF
PRINCIPAL,
DAVID A. EHLERS
Despite all the recent snow days, we at
CHS have been busy preparing for the upcoming ACT & ACT WorkKeys Testing that all
juniors must take. If you are the parent of a
junior, you will be receiving a lot of reminders and test taking tips over the next month.
In addition, parents of 9th, 10th, and 12th graders will receive reminders on when to attend
and when to stay at home due to testing.
This year, our school calendar was printed
before state testing dates were confirmed, so
please do not follow the school calendar. Juniors will take the ACT, which is a free college
entrance exam provided by the state of Michigan, on March 3rd. Only juniors (and the few
seniors who are testing) will have to attend
this day. On March 4th, we will administer the
ACT WorkKeys Test to the juniors while the
rest of our students report on a delayed start.
We will be in contact about exact times as we
draw nearer to the test date. The school calendar shows an additional day of testing on
March 5th. This day is no longer a
testing day and is a normal school
day for grades 9 – 12 to report at
normal times. Please add these
items to your calendars.
Finally, we will begin taking
schedule requests of upperclassman
soon. We attempt to follow the student’s 4 year plan developed in 8th
grade. Should at any time you have
questions or would like to discuss
your student’s schedule, please call
the high school and talk to Mrs.
Megyese.
COUNSELOR’S CORNER
This is the time of year when we
start scheduling for the 2015-16
school year. Presentations will be
made in English classes along with
handouts your student should take
home. Students will be choosing
their classes on line during the
months of March and April.
Reminder to 2015 seniors-please complete your local scholarship applications by their specified
due date in order to qualify.
Mrs. Fran Megyese
WORKING FOR
EXCELLENCE IN
EDUCATION
UPCOMING DATES
February 13—
Winterfest
NO SCHOOL
Teacher Professional
Development Day
February 16—
NO SCHOOL
Mid-Winter Break
February 18—
HS Parents pick up
Progress Reports
during Parent/Teacher
Conferences, 4-7 p.m.
Comet Comments—January 2015
SALMON IN THE CLASSROOM
by Mrs. Sara Glisson
This past October, my students and I became stewards of 200 Chinook salmon eggs provided by the Michigan DNR. We are participating in the ―Salmon in the Classroom‖ program,
which is an interdisciplinary, hands-on curriculum that allows students to raise and care for the
fish throughout the school year and release the young salmon ―smolts‖ into a local river in the
spring. This unique experience is correlated to Michigan’s High School Content Expectations
and is also engaging since my students have become very enthusiastic in raising a live natural
resource in our classroom! We are integrating a wide variety of academic disciplines in this
year long initiative. More than 10,000 students at over 160 schools across Michigan have participated in this program since it began in 1997.
Eyed Eggs – October
Sac-Frys – November
Swim-Up Frys – January
Students and staff have enjoyed watching the changes in life cycle so far this year. The
goal of this program is to immerse students in a classroom-based, hands-on learning opportunity, through exposure to salmon, their life cycle and to realize the benefits they have on the
Great Lakes ecosystem. This will hopefully encourage a lifelong respect for the natural resources that we all enjoy and sometimes take for granted. During the first week of May, we
will transport our young salmon to the Paw Paw River at Hayes Park in Watervliet. There, we
will release them and eventually the fish will travel through the Saint Joseph River to Lake
Michigan. After approximately 3 years in the lake, they will make their way (by smell) back to
the Paw Paw River to spawn and then die. This is truly conservation education at its best!
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Comet Comments—January 2015
UPGRADE OF THE DRAFTING/ENGINEERING
ROBOTICS LAB COMING SOON
by Dr. Dale Quattrin
Dale Quattrin (center), from Coloma High School, is presented a 2015 Midwest Energy Cooperative Strengthening Grant award of $2,500. The grant proposal was written
for the purchase of monitors and monitor stands in order to upgrade about ten of
the high school drafting and engineering lab computers to dual monitor systems. Midwest Energy had also awarded a 2013 Strengthening Schools grant to Dr.
Quattrin toward the purchase of Solidworks mechanical engineering software licenses. Also pictured is Kurt Schantz (left), a Midwest Energy Cooperative lineman,
and Cathy Haley (right), Career and Technical Education Director, Coloma High
School.
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Comet Comments—January 2015
MATH DEPARTMENT NEWS
by Mrs. Melissa Vegter
As a high school math teacher, it is often difficult to get students excited about
the topics we study everyday. To start our latest PreCalculus unit on exponential functions, I found a great activity involving candy and exponential growth and decay models. First students, working in groups, would start with two M&Ms candies in a cup
that would represent cancer cells. When they pour the M&Ms out of the cup, any
candy that was M side up would represent a cancer cell duplicating itself (meaning
we’d add another M&M to our cup). The students repeated this process until they ran
out of candy to add to their cup. Meanwhile one of the group members would record
in their lab sheet how many ―cancer cells‖ were in their cup each time. After conducting their experiment another member would input their group’s data into the graphing
calculator and fit an equation to their data. As a group they answered questions about
key characteristics of their graph and equation. They discovered that in fact they could
develop a general understanding of how exponential functions work without being lectured to in a traditional set up. Also, they were able to see how realistic these functions
are to real life, as many of our students have unfortunately dealt with a family member
with cancer.
After the ―cancer cell‖ experiment we conducted another experiment exponential decay. They started with all their M&Ms in the cup and poured them out. Any
M&Ms that were M side up were removed from the ―population‖. After several trials
the students again worked together to enter their data into the graphing calculator and
fit an exponential model to their data. They again worked together to answer questions
and find key characteristics of exponential decay functions. We then as a class discussed differences and similarities to exponential growth and decay models. This was
an excellent lesson for our students to gain some math confidence before a difficult
unit. I’m very proud of my classes for the growth and responsibility they portrayed
during this activity, and the whole unit.
——continued on next page——
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Comet Comments—January 2015
MATH DEPARTMENT NEWS—cont.
by Mrs. Melissa Vegter
——continued from page 4——
Below are some of the many photos I took during the activity. You can see the
students working in groups around their M&Ms, lab sheets, and graphing calculators.
PUPIL COUNT
DAY
IS FEBRUARY 11
PLEASE
MAKE SURE
YOUR CHILD IS IN
ATTENDANCE ALL
DAY ON THAT DAY
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Comet Comments—January 2015
COLOMA HIGH SCHOOL
JANUARY STUDENTS OF THE MONTH !!
Congratulations to:
(l-r) Freshman--Grace Hester, Sophomore—Grant Kroschel,
Junior—Courtney Kroschel, Senior— Madison Cullitan
DATE CHANGES FOR MARCH
Please mark your calendar
March 3
ACT Testing, Only juniors report
March 4
Juniors report all day, testing. 9th, 10th, and 12th, delayed start.
More information with times will follow
March 5
Regular day for all HS students
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Comet Comments—January 2015
MARBLE VELOCITY
by Mrs. Brande Van Niel
One of the content standards in physics
students are required to master is how an
object’s position can be measured and
graphed as a function of time. Students
currently taking Physics Essentials investigated this relationship by observing the
amount of time it takes for a marble to fall
through a measured amount of shampoo in
a graduated cylinder. To begin the activity,
students determined the distance in millimeters between each 10mL graduation of a
100 mL graduated cylinder. The cylinder
was then filled to the 100 mL mark with
shampoo. One student dropped a marble
into the cylinder while another student recorded the amount of time it took for the
bottom of the marble to reach each of the
10 mL marks. Students then added 8mL
of water to the shampoo in order to reduce
the viscosity of the shampoo. This allowed students to observe the effect of viscosity on the speed of the marble. Once
students collected the data, they created a
distance-time graph to compare the slope
of the line to the speed with which the
marble fell through the regular shampoo
versus the diluted shampoo. Not only did
this activity help students master a required content standard but also reinforced
graphing and teamwork skills.
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Comet Comments—January 2015
Come out and see our new auditorium
and the Coloma High School Drama Club!
by Mrs. Sara Glisson
Coloma High School Drama Presents:
“Just Another High School Play”
Saturday, February 21 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, February 22 at 3:00 p.m.
In the new CHS Theater!
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